


Water Rots the Body

by unsmilingchuck



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Angst, Could Be Read as Romantic Depending on How Much You Read Into the Intense Emotional Repression, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, F/M, Gen, How Did I Forget to Tag This as Angst it is Definitely Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Slight Series 2 AU, s02e04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-10 03:39:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21461440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unsmilingchuck/pseuds/unsmilingchuck
Summary: After they close the Latimer case, Ellie Miller's eating habits turn less-than-healthy. Hardy decides he has to do something about it.
Relationships: Alec Hardy & Ellie Miller, Alec Hardy/Ellie Miller
Comments: 18
Kudos: 103
Collections: Hurt Ellie Miller





	Water Rots the Body

**Author's Note:**

> LISTEN. Listen. I know we all love beating the shit out of David Tennant but feminism means that I have to contribute some light Ellie-centric whump. 
> 
> Very minor emendation to Series 2 where Ellie develops some bad eating habits after the events of Series 1. Most of it takes place in S02E04, during everyone’s favorite canonical bed sharing scene. This is not intended to be a medically accurate portrayal of disordered eating or the treatment thereof (this probably doesn't need to be said but please don't actually do what Hardy does). It does contain references to purging though; proceed with caution if you think that's something which might upset you.

He can’t help but notice that Miller is getting thinner.

At first Hardy assumes it’s just the more-or-less-natural side effects of stress. Their job takes a toll on everyone, and her situation seems exceptionally trying—suddenly a working single parent, grappling with the enormity of her husband’s crimes while being a pariah in her own hometown. It’s startling when he finally sees her some months later. Her cheeks are hollow and pale, and her jacket hangs loosely on her frame. He’s almost surprised that she can still lift Fred out of his carseat. 

The end of the investigation had been harrowing enough, but Joe forcing the case to go to trial seems to have made everything that much worse. He rarely sees Miller without a coffee in hand, easily going through four cups day. Despite this she looks exhausted, the dark circles under her eyes taking up a near-permanent residence there. 

Hardy sympathizes. He remembers the days and weeks before the Sandbrook case went to trial, the lack of sleep leading to an irregular meal schedule and the terrible food choices which come with said meal schedule. He remembers too the stress of suddenly finding yourself a single parent—and given that Miller has two kids, one a toddler, he has to imagine that it’s even harder for her. Times like these have an unholy talent for making basic needs seem like pointless luxuries. He can’t have that. And besides, he needs Miller to help him close the Sandbrook case for good. 

So he starts meeting with her at cafes where he can only eat three things on the menu, putting real sugar in her coffee instead of those stupid zero-cal sweeteners. But Miller doesn’t seem to be getting better. She orders the same salads as him, sometimes opts out of coffee in favor of those neon energy drinks which give him heart palpitations if he so much as looks at them. Occasionally when she stands up she has to pause and steady herself on the wall or the back of a chair, looking for a moment as if she might well and truly collapse. 

Hardy realizes that fixing this, unfortunately, is going to have to involve an actual conversation. 

Despite his best efforts it happens outside the courtroom, the two of them sitting at one of the rickety metal tables and waiting to see if they’ll be called to the box. He’s picking at a scone from a nearby bakery, she’s nursing her second coffee of the day. It takes him a moment to gather his courage and broach the subject. 

“You’re looking thinner.” He searches her face for a reaction. She just rolls her eyes and takes another sip from her coffee cup. 

“Really know how to flatter a girl Hardy.” 

“No, not like that I mean—you don’t look good.” 

“Wow, thanks.” 

He scrubs a hand down his face. Miller glares at him across the table, unmoved. This is not going as well as he had perhaps foolishly hoped. 

“That’s not what I—you don’t look healthy, Miller. You don’t look like you’re eating.” She crosses her arms, leaning back in her chair. 

“We’re eating right now aren’t we?” 

“No, I’m eating and you’re having a coffee. When was the last time you ate?” 

“Breakfast.” 

“What time was that?” 

“This morning? I don’t know, half six maybe.” 

“What did you eat?”

“For God’s sake this isn’t a bloody interview!” Miller snaps. “Don’t know why you’re bothering me abut this when you barely eat anything anyway—”

She’s cut off by the appearance of the prosecution, looking to iron out a few more details about life in the Miller household before their whole world got upended. She doesn’t bother to say goodbye, just gives him a curt nod before walking away. Hardy’s worried he may have lost her until two days later, when she sits down next to him outside the courtroom and slides him a paper cup of tea across the table. 

Despite the frosty ending (and beginning and middle), the conversation seems to have had an impact. He notices her ordering half sandwiches and cups of soup, though she doesn’t always finish them. The next time they stop in the coffee shop outside the court she orders a croissant while making direct eye contact with him. 

“See?” says Miller, waving the wax paper bag in front of his face. “Food. Are you happy? Will you stop staring at me like you think I’m seconds away from toppling over?” 

“Sure, sure,” says Hardy, trying not to do exactly that. 

He knows he hasn’t totally destroyed their relationship when she still agrees to come with him to Sandbrook. They buy sandwiches on the way to the hotel, eating them off the side of the road in the car. It comforts him in some strange way, watching her finish the first half of her sandwich and start on the second. She refused to let him pay for it, even though she’d been the one driving all evening. 

It’s fine. Everything’s fine. Until of course they get to the hotel which has somehow lost their booking, and Hardy starts praying to whatever cruel god might be out there that the defense hasn’t decided to start tailing them. Miller looks just as irritated as he’s sure he does, even as she insists that he stay in the room instead of sleeping in the car. 

He tries not to stare at her as she climbs into bed—partly out of propriety, and partly because the sight is still so unsettling. The v neck of her pyjama shirt reveals jutting collarbones, and the dim light of the bedside lamps throws the dark circles under her eyes into sharp relief. Despite the exhaustion he can still feel her tossing and turning as he fades towards sleep, shivering under the covers. His last thought before succumbing to his own fatigue is a sense of profound unease. She’s so thin—how is she still so thin? 

Hardy wakes to the creak of the bedsprings, feels the worn hotel mattress dip and then decompress. He rolls over just in time to see Miller walking towards the tiny bathroom, feeling her way forward in the dark. She pauses at the sound of the blanket moving and he stills, closes his eyes, tries to even his breathing out. They stay like that for a moment, not moving, and then he hears the click of the bathroom door latching shut. Then the sound of a zipper and some clattering—rifling through her bag?—a quiet _“Shit!”_ as something falls to the floor. Hardy opens his eyes again, but the room is still dark—no light from under the bathroom door. 

He’s about to turn and go back to sleep when he hears the retching. 

For a moment he’s thrust back in time, to that fateful day at the police station, with Miller choking on the horror of the whole ugly truth in the corner of the interview room. It’s a memory he rears back from instinctively, still strangely tender even months later. And then he remembers the last eight months, and the hollow cheeks and endless coffees and the way she just kept disappearing before his eyes. 

He’s so fucking stupid. 

Hardy’s halfway out of bed before he realizes what he’s doing, untangling the pink blanket from around his ankles. The hotel room is freezing through his shirt. There’s no sound coming from the bathroom now, but when he tries the knob he finds it locked. Rattles it once, twice. The toilet flushes. 

“Miller?” It comes out far too loud for the room. He tries again, quieter. “Miller? What the hell are you doing?” 

To his surprise the door swings open then, putting him face-to-face with a Miller looking somehow, impossibly, worse for wear. She’s breathing erratically, hair still mussed from a fitful sleep. 

“Taking a piss, what does it look like?”

“Not what I heard,” says Hardy. 

“That’s disgusting. You’re disgusting.” She glares at him. “I’d like to go back to bed now, if you wouldn’t mind getting out of my way.” 

“Miller…” 

“Don’t ‘Miller’ me. Move.” 

Hardy stands aside, earning himself another withering look for his trouble. Miller takes two steps back into the room before she has to stop and steady herself on the wall, pointedly refusing to meet his gaze. He watches her carefully as she picks her way back towards the bed. Once she’s safely arrived he turns and shoves his feet into his shoes, fishing his wallet out of his coat pocket. Miller grumbles something as he pulls the door open, but it gets lost in the sound of her burrowing under the covers. 

The hallway of the hotel room is searingly bright—Hardy has to stop and blink for a minute before his eyes adjust. He’s too exhausted to try and read the signs without his glasses so he simply starts wandering down the hallway, navigating by memory. Despite the hotel being booked to capacity, most of the rooms he walks by are more or less quiet. Behind one comes a of burst of laughter, another the coital grunting of drunk twentysomethings on a weekend holiday. He stumbles around a corner and almost collides with two young parents, juggling backpacks and suitcases and sleeping children. They’re too tired to berate him, and he’s too tired to apologize.

Another turn brings him to an alcove with a vending machine and a water fountain. The vending machine is nearly cleaned out. After a moment’s consideration he feeds it two pounds and punches in the number for some little shortbread biscuits. The package rolls forward and then stops, caught on the end of the metal spiral holding it up on the shelf. He curses a few times, smacking his hand against the front window, but the package remains unmoved. Hardy digs the last few notes out of his wallet and tries again, throwing a few more choice words at the machine as it finally releases his shortbread. He grabs the package and stumbles back towards their room. 

Miller makes a small noise of irritation as he reenters and clicks on the lamp, shielding her eyes against the brightness as she scrambles to sit up. 

“Where did you run off to?” 

Hardy doesn’t answer. He sits down on the bed across from her, back to the headboard, carefully opening the shortbread and trying not to get crumbs everywhere. Miller watches as he breaks off the corner of one of the biscuits and holds it out to her, the way you’d hold a spoonful of mush in front of a reluctant toddler. 

“Here.” His voice is rougher than he meant. He clears is throat. “Eat.” 

She leans back a little and sighs, reaching to take shortbread from him. He jerks his hand away out of her reach. 

“Nope. Not giving this to you, you’ll just throw it away.” He tries a second time, stretching his hand back out. “Eat. Very simple: chew, swallow, don’t throw it up again. Most children older than two can do it.” She glares at him, eyes glossy in the weak lamplight. “Go on then.” 

“I’m not hungry. We already ate dinner.” Her voice is flat and icy, each word clipped. She doesn’t break eye contact. 

“Yes, we ate dinner, and then you threw it back up again, and now I’m telling you that you need to eat.” 

“And how is this your problem exactly?” 

“Because we’re working on a case together and I can’t have you collapsing in the middle of it.” 

“You’re worried about me collapsing? You were the one who fainted last year! Twice!” 

“That was different. Also don’t change the subject.” He sighs, trying to draw her attention back to the crumbling shortbread. “Just eat the damn biscuit already would you?” 

“I’m not a fucking dog, Hardy.” 

“No, of course not, you’re an aspiring skeleton is what you are. Do you even want Tom to come back?” 

Hardy realizes that it’s a bridge too far as soon as the words are out of his mouth. He realizes it in the split second where Miller’s face morphs from irritation to shock to raw, open hurt. And then her face collapses and she’s crying, curled over on herself, palms pressed into her eyes as if that will stem the tears. The thin material of her pyjama shirt trembles with her shaking shoulders. They stay like that for long minute, and Hardy knows that this is the moment where he should reach out, says something, offer a hug like normal people do. But even if he didn’t think that might just make everything worse, it feels like a line which shouldn’t be crossed on a night when they’re both sleeping in the same bed. 

He heaves a sigh, suddenly exhausted, as though his body has abruptly remembered that humans are supposed to be asleep at—he checks the watch on his nightstand—half two in the morning. Before he can spill any shortbread crumbs he sets the package down on the nightstand, exchanging it for a tissue which he holds out to Miller. This time she accepts his offering, wiping at her face until the tissue is nearly coming apart in her hands. There’s no other sound, apart from her sniffling and the hum of the AC unit. Hardy waits for her to break the silence. 

She doesn’t. Instead, Miller reaches across the bed and grabs the package of shortbread from the table. He watches as she pulls out a biscuit, stares at it for a long moment, and then takes a bite. Chews, swallows, takes a second. He realizes belatedly that despite his best efforts there are going to be crumbs all over the bed. He realizes also that he doesn’t really care. 

Halfway through the bag Miller sets it down on the covers and moves towards the edge of the bed. He grabs her wrist without thinking. 

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“To get a glass of water? Is that not allowed?” She’s glaring at him, but the bite of it is dulled with the exhaustion now etched on her face. If Miller notices his hand on her wrist she doesn’t react. He’s acutely aware of this point of contact between them—her pulse fluttering under his fingertips, fast and light, even as her skin in still cool to the touch. Abruptly he remembers the trial, and the defense’s new line of attack, and snatches his hand away. 

“I’ll get it.” Hardy once more hops off the bed, except that of course he’s too old for hopping and instead gracelessly stumbles. He wanders into the bathroom, grabbing an empty glass and filling it in the sink. Miller’s toothbrush is still out on the counter. He briefly considers throwing it out, and then remembers that they do in fact have to interact with other people tomorrow who might not take so kindly to the side effects of its removal. So he leaves it untouched and goes back into the hotel room, handing Miller the glass of water before climbing back onto the bed. She drains most of it in one long sip before placing on the bedside table, once again picking up the package of shortbread. The two of them sit in silence for a while, her eating, him watching the passing headlights cast thin shadows onto the wall. 

“Miller,” he finally asks, “what the hell is going on?” 

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” It takes some effort to keep his voice level. 

“I really don’t know!” She’s fidgeting with the package now, breaking the last few biscuits into progressively smaller pieces. “I just…feel so sick, whenever I see him. And when I don’t, sometimes. I feel terrible.” 

“Food might help with that. Feeling terrible.” 

“Shut up.” There’s no real heat in it, just weariness. 

“How long has this been going on for?” 

“Few months, I guess.” She shrugs. “Not the throwing up thing—that was once the trial started. But even before then I just couldn’t. There was so much going on. I felt so disgusting, once I knew. How could I not have seen it?” 

“He hid it well. And you know that if you suspected anything you would’ve acted immediately.” 

“Would I?” Miller asks, so quietly Hardy almost misses it. She doesn’t look at him, instead staring vacantly at the blinds covering the window, still fiddling with the cellophane biscuit wrapper. 

“Yes,” he says, pouring as much determination as he can into the word. “Yes, you would have. I know you would have.” 

Her shoulders relax, almost imperceptibly. He watches her blink a few times as though pulled back into the present from somewhere else, swiping a few latent tears from the corner of her eye. Then Miller very carefully deposits the package of shortbread crumbs onto her bedside table. 

“You’re not gonna finish that?” ask Hardy. She shakes her head. 

“I’ll get sick for real. Turns out not eating much can be pretty bad for your stomach.” 

“If you’re sure.” 

“I’m sure.” She reaches over to finish the glass of water next to her. “We could get breakfast in the morning though, if you like. I think we passed a place on the way here.” 

“I would like that actually.” He reaches over to check his watch again. “Should try and get some sleep though. Have to be up early tomorrow.” 

They crawl back into bed, Miller once more curled up under the covers, Hardy wrapped in a blanket on top of them. He lies there listening as her breathing slowly evens out, the shivering finally subsiding as she once more falls asleep. There’s no more hotel guests roaming the halls, or cars passing outside the window, just the two of them lying quietly in the bubble of this room. If Hardy dreams that night, he doesn’t remember it. 

One week later, he wanders back into his house to find Miller hunched over a pile of papers in the living room, surrounded by everything he’s ever learned about the Sandbrook case and then some. 

“You’re out of teabags and milk,” she whispers, “and I’ve used the last of the bread.” She flashes a nervous half smile at him, searching his face for a reaction. 

He feels a grin break across his face for the first time in weeks. 

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not..totally sure how I feel about this one, but I’ve reached that point of just wanting to put it out and be done with it. Some parts still feel a bit weird. I'm not really sure if it's in character? This was written as a break from my current project (multi-chapter comedy), which is probably why it leans a little hard into the angst. 
> 
> I’m also two for two in terms of writing fics where my extremely chaste and repressed outline turns into an improbably more chaste and repressed fic. Not sure how this keeps happening but looking forward to the day when I can write something more explicit than unaddressed pining. 
> 
> You may have noticed that this is not Brit-picked, beyond the fact that I did a quick dive into UK vending machine websites to figure out what might plausibly be in them. If any Brits find something to pick they are more than welcome to do so. 
> 
> Comments make my day, and I treasure every single one. I do my best to reply to them all but sometimes it takes a day or two. 
> 
> Also, I’m trying an experiment in the form of an email newsletter? It’s meant to be like a slightly more robust version of subscribing—new works, updates, recommendations, the occasional progress report. You can sign up at [buttondown.email/unsmilingchuck](https://buttondown.email/unsmilingchuck) if that sounds interesting. I promise I won’t spam you.


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